Synth
by Misato Cuad Solte
Summary: What is Suguru doing in Bad Luck? Is this how he'll make his name? A totally biased Suguru oneshot


Notes: All opinions featured herein are my own, PERSONAL feelings and should not be taken as gospel. If you disagree or have any issues with what I have written, please please please go and write your own fic.   
  
This fic is COMPLETELY BIASED because it is from Sugurus' point of view. I love Tohma. I don't think Suguru does (doesn't stop me reading the fics though).   
  
I digress.  
  
This fic was inspired (in that it's totally biased) by the fantastic Tohma shrine owned and maintained by Calliope (http://www.thenoodlebowl.com/tohma), and by her wonderful fanfiction. If there's one person qualified to write about Tohma, it's her. HINT HINT HINT.  
  
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Synth - The Totally Biased Suguru One-Shot   
  
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Suguru sighed. Ever since Shuichis' impromptu return from New York, things had started to look up, on the outside at least. But he knew better than to believe what was on the outside, quite the contrary, he never questioned it and always believed the opposite.   
  
So, as the situation led him to believe, things were not well. But that was his job, that was work. Things were never totally perfect, and if they were then something had been overlooked. The whole role, the whole music business, was about making things perfect for everyone, all of the time.   
  
Sakano knew that, at least. He tried desperately to make things work, to make things go to plan. He wanted more than anything to get it right, to say the right things at the right time to the right people. It wasn't easy, Suguru could see, but what else could he do to help?   
  
He did his job, he managed the synth, he did what he was told. But still, their producer seemed beyond the point of help or charity. Suguru did his best to work under the incessant melodrama of Shuichi and the cold novelist, did his best to abandon his opinion or musical ability to keep the peace, but it was hard. How Sakano kept his motivation... well, he did know.  
  
  
  
It was sad, really, how the producer stayed together. His cold, consumed cousin made no effort to rectify that, merely keeping some impossible balance steady in order to keep his admirer useful. Suguru hated him for that, though he knew he shouldn't. It must be how you have to be, in this business, to be successful.   
  
Ruthless and cold. There was no such thing as a musicians opinion, not for him anyway, as K had so forcefully demonstrated. It was painfully manufactured, set up, prepared for, in every way. But to be successful, Suguru knew there was no time or space for music with soul. Maybe Shuichi could drag meaning out from the lyrics, but the music was tailored for him and left nothing to chance or emotion. The music could be improved, yes, but at a cost. In the end, it was still someone else's' song.   
  
But that was what he wanted, right?   
  
Tohma had always played someone else's song, and Tohma was the one person Suguru wanted to surpass. Ryuichi was the idol, Ryuichi claimed the lyrics with his voice, Ryuichi was a legend that lived far into the silence of the resting Nittle Grasper. Tohma was not. Tohmas' music was invisible, you could hear it, but not see the man who played it. He had made himself outside of the music, yet being part of the music, uniting the music under the NG label. It had taken years, but he had made his own legend...   
  
Suguru managed the synth in a band called Bad Luck.   
  
It wasn't his band, really. He had little right to complain about the manufactured music or the patchy vocals, or the stifling drama that went on around him. Hiroshi had a little more sense, despite his attachment to Shuichi. He included Suguru as part of the band, as part of the team, but it was a thin connection, pulled taught by their differing relations with the weak vocalist. The guitarist had sense enough merely to aid his friend, rather than involve his co-worker in their disputes.   
  
Maybe it was easier that way, maybe it was less painful. Suguru didn't know any different. To him, the band was a way forward, a way to achieve his dream. He had expectations to live up to, requirements to meet.   
  
But his cousin had his own agenda, his own drive, his own pain. It had made him cold, and it made other people suffer.   
  
What had happened... He didn't know. But Yukis' presence loomed over them all, controlled the finely balanced emotions of the vocalist and the president, in turn shifting the tensions of the guitarist and the producer, and the extremities of the manager. Suguru was affected, strained, exhausted by it, but it was his job.   
  
He had been given this chance by the one he wanted to be, and to beat. He wanted to make his own legend, to make his own future.   
  
Mistakes would be made, emotions would be filled, loyalties would be tested and most often broken.   
  
Bad Luck had been made on a childish desire, a naive belief that talent could be learned. No matter how successful the band became, it would never grow out of the shadow of Nittle Grasper, and Shuichi Shindou would never become greater or better in every way than Ryuichi Sakuma.   
  
There were things about them both that Suguru could never hope to learn.   
  
He could never hope to understand his cousin, the one he aspired to be. He could only hope to be the best he could, to make his future the one he hoped for. He would not be cold and ruthless for his own fulfilment, he would not cause people pain through his own greed. He would accept his pain and hurt and move on and make a success of his life. There would be no distractions, no wasted emotions, no time to succumb to a heavy heart.   
  
It was a naive and childish desire, and he did not understand it at all.   
  
Maturity wasn't pain, was it?   
  
Success wasn't cold, was it?   
  
What was he doing here, steeling himself against Shuichis' tears and Hiroshis' sighs?   
  
No one was looking at him.   
  
The stage was bright, and the keys were clear.   
  
Somewhere, in the screaming audience, Yuki would be there, a misguided smile or frown on his face. It could mean anything, and he didn't care.   
  
As the vocalist wiped the last of the tears from his eyes, Suguru started to play.   
  
This was his place, for now. In the shadows, blinded by the lights outside. Maybe one day he would make it into the light, and understand what he wanted to be. But till then, the shadow of Seguchi Tohma would stop him, the shadow he could neither understand nor surpass.   
  
Suguru sighed. The melodrama continued. 


End file.
